60 Years of Independence, Education or Leadership Failure; The Student In A Merry-go-Round

Over 103years of bondage and servitude, libration was never curtailed by the then circumstances. We watch our able men and women carried away into slavery and our resources were never spared. On our own soil, we played the role of a visitor, a gatecrasher and a nanny.

As it is often said, you can fool a person for sometime but not all the time; the dawn of realization came, our fathers begun to find their voice, our mothers led as a bouncing force and they begun craving for inheritance and thereby serving as motivation and encouragement.

The trade unions, the students front with the chiefs as the ringleaders, the era of emancipation and self awakening finally narrowed on us. Much gratification to UGCC and CPP, the Marathon struggle, death, excessive pain, brutality and cruelty, the dawn of 6th march saw the son of the land, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah proclaim it. To a teeming populace, we streamed in happiness, jubilated with unspeakable joy. The words of Nkrumah, “Freedom and independence” tells us we have finally arrived at the land of our birth redeeming our discovery, where neither pain nor coercion will be visited on us. I believe, and indeed we could all sense the fragrance of relieve, the joy and happiness. All too soon, it endured for a night and quickly we got into the realms of nation building, picking up and fixing the pieces. Like a puzzle, our tribal differences, diverse political ideologies, gender equality perfectly fit into making a nation of one people with a common destiny.
From nowhere came the enmity, we became the architect of our own downfall. In a PHD (Pull Him Down) manner, we abrogated any meaningful course that was directed to making us a nation, well to do, a beacon and a lighthouse, justifying it with reasons that made us happy at the time. Little did we know that we were bait used to trap ourselves. In a Merry go round we got nowhere and once again we buried the differences.

It is time to forget the past, let’s build today for we cannot fail to disappoint our children and their children’s children. This was great news that sunk in the ears, heart and mind of all of us and someway, somehow, the jungle ended.
It is time to build a sustainable nation, full of intellectuals, courageous, patriotic and critical thinkers and orators who by deed of hard work and proven result can, and should move this great nation of ours to the dream land. Good leadership and education appeared to be the panacea to achieving this vision. 60 years down the lane our nation Ghana can only boast of making two steps forward and a step back. Our leaders seem to be misleading us and have become demigods we are worshiping. There appears not to be any clear cut policy directly aimed at nurturing the youth whom we claim to be grooming for the future. Tenure of leadership becomes an era of corruption, neglect of the youth and students. Are the leaders doing their best for which we cannot see?

Education is key, the key that opens the doors of knowledge, wealth, critical thinking and makes us patriotic individuals willing and ready to put the nation both at the heart and first. Howbeit our 60 years of independence, the student is walloping in poverty and employment, inability to invent, unable to produce or do anything meaningful out of education. Is the education outlandish or it is just a matter of students not learning the right content?

It a shame that at 60 years of independence, the Ghanaian student cannot think critically and invent, produce and innovate, propound and publish anything of our origin to the honor and pride Ghana. With 60 years of independence all we do is to change leaders but still have same old story. 60years of independence, we have altered and changed our educational system yet the student is still at a standstill, no job, no economic improvement but the student can boast of classes and titles moving from one school to the other without change in outcome.

Are we just blind to the potentials of education or we are just failing to see the worth of our leaders?.

60 years of independence one cannot tell whether leadership is failing us or education is keeping us from progressing, but one thing we can say is that, 60 years of independence the student is in a Merry-go-round.